LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 393

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ADDITIONAL THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS—OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 393

grasp of the Sacrament than many Lutherans do. But it is the
Lutherans who give up their confession in such schemes. The
equivalence of altars on the basis of ambiguous formulas means
opening the borders between the confession of the Sacrament and
its denial. Robbed of the Sacrament of the Altar, the Church of the
Augsburg Confession ceases to exist. Its place is taken by a bu-
reaucratic alliance of altars, under whatever name, which can no
longer tell where, if anywhere, the Lord’s body and blood are really
present and given, and where not.

“Apostolic Succession”

On the one hand it is argued that the 36th of the Thirty-Nine
Articles “is in fact a vital defense of the traditional Catholic struc-
ture of the threefold ordained ministry (bishop, priest, and deacon)
and a claim that the English episcopate remains in apostolic suc-
cession” (Guy Fitch Lytle ITI, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Refor-
mation, 1:82). On the other hand the American Lutheran-Anglican
dialogue concluded: “It was not until the Anglo-Catholicism of the
19th Century Tractarian movement that serious argument was
heard within the Church of England for the historic episcopate
being of the essence (esse) of the Church in a way that tended to
‘un-Church’ non-episcopal churches” (Lutheran-Episcopal Dia-
logue, p. 35).

The Malines Conversations (1921-1925) conducted by a group
of Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians had agreed “that
Episcopacy is by Divine law” (Concise Oxford Dictionary of the
Christian Church, p. 318). But the Church of England’s official re-
sponse to Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry (Lima, 1982) stated: “This
estimate of the threefold order as not prescribed by Holy Scripture
and yet desirable for unity is a position members of the Church of
England will welcome. It is in line with the reflections of the Doc-
trine Commission of 1938” (Churches Respond To BEM HiI:53).

The Anglican “Study Guide” to the Porvoo papers refers to
Chapter IV (Episcopacy) as “the most crucial and also the most dif-
ficult chapter” (p. 14). The Porvoo Common Statement’s approach
is lenient in holding that an “authentic apostolic succession of wit-
ness and service” has been maintained by all participating
churches, even by those that did not retain the “sign” of “the his-
torical episcopal succession,” and that this “sign” may now be re-
embraced “without denying [such a church’s] past apostolic conti-
nuity” (pp. 28-29).

Traditionalist Anglicans rightly suspect compromise and con-
cession here. Thus John Hunwicke warns against the implications
for relations with British Free Churches, and questions the ade-
quacy of the Danish episcopate’s “succession” via “superintendent”
Bugenhagen: “If the outpouring of the Spirit in the Episcopal Con-
secration is done sacramentally through representative members of
the world-wide Episcopal Collegium so as to maintain and uphold
the local Church in the communion of the Una Sancta and so that
its new bishop’s ministry is inserted into the Catholicity of the
Church of God, then Bugenhagen, frankly, has lost his trousers”
(“Porvoo or not Porvoo?” New Directions, July 1995, p. 8).

On the other hand, Bishop Richard Holloway of the Scottish
Episcopal Church, said in his sermon in Trondheim Cathedral on
the occasion of the signing of the Porvoo Declaration: “If we are
going to be honest about the episcopacy today, we have to ac-
knowledge that some of us have treated it as an idol that justified
us,” adding, “which is why so many churches have rejected epis-
copacy” (Lutheran World Information, no. 17/96).

What then is one to make of this “sign” in light of the Book of
Concord? Two issues must be kept distinct. The three-fold division
into bishop, presbyter, and deacon, is one thing. Theories about
“unbroken” lines of succession from the apostles in terms of who
laid hands on whom are quite another.

In and of itself the threefold ministry is an adiaphoron, a vener-
able tradition. The Apology expresses “our deep desire to maintain

the church polity and various ranks of the ecclesiastical] hierarchy,
although they were created by human authority” (XIV,1). Smal-
cald Articles: “If the bishops were true bishops and were concerned
about the church and the Gospel, they might be permitted (for the
sake of love and unity, but not of necessity) to ordain and confirm
us and our preachers, provided this could be done without pretense,
humbug, and unchristian ostentation” (III/X/1).

The so-called “apostolic succession” is another matter. On this
score, the Church of Sweden’s credentials are if anything even bet-
ter than those of the Church of England. Yet in responding to the
Lambeth Conference’s 1920 overture, Archbishop Soederblom and
the Church of Sweden minced no words: “God has instituted min-
isterium docendi evangelii et porrigendi sacramenta—our Church
cannot recognize any essential difference, de jure divino, of aim
and authority between the two or three Orders into which the min-
istry of grace may have been divided, jure humano, for the benefit
and convenience of the Church” (Vilmos Vajta, ed., Church in Fel-
lowship: Lutheran Interchurch Agreements and Practices, p. 183).

Comparing the New Testament variety with the bishop-led
structure assumed by early Anglicanism and the still later notions
of “apostolic succession,” D. L. Edwards concluded:

When the 1662 Prayer Book states that the existence of the three or-
ders of bishops, priests and deacons since the apostles’ time is “evident
unto all men” who are diligent students of the matter, it is stating an un-
truth. When the advocates of the apostolic succession theory deduce
from this false premise that the apostles’ powers were transmitted to
bishops who are therefore the essential ministry on which all other min-
istries are dependent, they are turning bad history into dangerous theol-
ogy. ... The inevitable conclusion seems to be that the episcopate
emerged out of the presbyterate by a natural development, varying from
place to place in speed and detail (Not Angels But Anglicans, pp. 27-28).
Hermann Sasse’s classic study likewise shows that the notion of

an “unbroken” line of episcopal ordinations is in fact an “ecclesiasti-
cal myth” and a “soap bubble, on which no church can be built”
(“Apostolic Succession,” in We Confess the Church, pp. 105, 102).
One must distinguish apostolicity of origin, of doctrine, and of suc-
cession. “For Lutherans certainly everything depends on the ques-
tion: ‘Where today is the doctrine of the apostles?’” (p. 88). “Apos-
tolic succession” is no mere innocent tradition if it is meant to
compensate for lack of consensus in the pure Gospel and sacraments,
or if it is taken to imply that something more than such dogmatic-
sacramental consensus is necessary for the true unity of the church.

But even if “apostolic succession” were a mere adiaphoron, the
principle would hold that in a case of confession, that is, when the
truth of the Gospel and Chnistian liberty are at stake, nothing is an
adiaphoron. In such a situation one may not yield even in matters
which would otherwise be adiaphora (Formula of Concord X).
Does the assertion in paragraph 57 in the Porvoo Statement that
“those churches in which the sign has at some time not been used .
. . Should embrace it” indicate an obligation to do so? If so, the con-
fessional Lutheran must inquire after the basis of the obligation.
When paragraph 48 states that the sign “transmits ministerial of-
fice and its authority in accordance with God’s will and institu-
tion,” what is said here to be God’s will—the transmission of the
office, or the sign? And is it correct to say that the adiaphorous sign
transmits anything?

The Porvoo Common Statement admits: “The use of the sign
of the historic episcopal succession does not by itself guarantee fi-
delity of a church to every aspect of the apostolic faith, life, and
mission” (p. 27). That is rather an understatement. With a few hon-
orable exceptions, of what help has the whole Anglican-Nordic-
Baltic episcopate been in the crisis over that palpable abandonment
of apostolicity, the ordination of women?

The trouble is that the endless quest for the “sign” (Porvoo
Study Guide: “the most crucial and also the most difficult chap-
ter”!) has effectively obscured and swallowed up real concern
about the apostolic truth, of which the “sign” is supposed to remind

2001 Convention Workbook